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"Sir, we are approaching the runway." My pilot announced as I looked out the window in disbelief. Here I was, assigned to be an assistant to my brother who's the head architect of this project. In my opinion, he's far less qualified than someone who cheated their way through elementary just to get a passing grade. Our mission is to advance and enlighten the natives of this planet and I'm certain that the lack of a performance measurement is one of the primary reasons why this "grand" mission failed miserably, even after thousands of years.
"Runway? But we're flying in a space-hovercraft, not a biplane! Runways were passé thousands of years ago. What kind of idiot builds runways nowadays? Especially ones made of nothing but dirt!" I stated with irritation, while drinking my coffee. Probably not a good combination given my poor blood pressure.
"Your brother, sir?" He pointed out in a meek voice.
I slapped my face with my hand and let out a large sigh. "Yes, well he was never the sharpest in our class to begin with."
My pilot let out a scoff, "Maybe the boss is fond of his minimalism?"
I let out a groan. I knew he was being sarcastic, so I added, "And his trademark dance moves too I suppose! Seriously, one time he built a bath house out of mud bricks and boulders, which isn't exactly appropriate for a hundred thousand credit project. Even more so since it was missing indoor plumbing!" I drummed my fingers on the seat, before I pulled up the communicator to get in touch with him down there. No bars, no luck. Did he forget to install a communications tower, again? "Oh there better be a bathroom down there!" I stated, regretting having that third cup of coffee. I looked out the window and saw nothing but dusty, brown mountains and flat planes of dirt, all of which have long crisscrossing lines and patterns on them. "And it better not be a portable toilet!"
When the spaceship landed on the ground, blowing away a few lines resembling some bug or something, there was nothing around the so-called runway. No lights. No concrete. No buildings of any kind. Just a lot of dirt runways of various sizes and directions, at least half of them useless and too small in width, and some random design patterns of the planet's local animals on the ground that is only visible from the mountains or in the sky. As the door of the saucer started to open, the sun's rays struck my eyes and lit the interior of the spaceship. Just then, a loud creaking noise echoed from the gears, and the ramp was jammed. As I covered the light with my hands, the pilot was busy fixing the rusty control panel. It also didn't help that the saucer mechanics decided to cut back on their expenditures by cutting back on ramp lubricants, something that I found out after actually reading the briefing some time later that day. The metal ramp plumped down onto the ground, sending any remaining bit of awe and dignity in a large cloud of dust.
As the pilot removed his hat, placed it on his chest and held his head high, I pointed out to him, while waving the dust away with my hands, "I'm sorry, but do you see a band and red carpet before us?" I walked down the ramp in a rush, followed by my pilot, and headed towards a group of locals shuffling heaps of dirt back and forth. I would recognize my brother anywhere. There he was, acting like some sort of choreographer who's playing charades with blue-collar workers, all of whom couldn't give a damn. At least it wasn't as embarrassing as when he, under the influence of alcohol, decided to dress himself as some bloated, green bipedal octopus creature with wings while shouting out his favorite lyrics to a pop song in front of a tribe of humans, of which he could only remember the first five or six words.
I marched towards my brother, who was giving out hand signals and gesture commands to the confused natives instead of communicating in their local language, and stood inches away from him. I gave him time to finish whatever he was doing, five seconds should have done the trick, before I cleared my throat. Nothing happened. I tried again, louder this time, and he was still unaware in spite of the fact that even some of the scantly clad locals are starting to take notice. By the third time, the locals stopped working and stared at the both of us. Unsurprisingly, he continued to make those frantic gestures with his arms. After a while, I blurted out, "This is a construction yard, not a mime school Marcel Marceau!" He turned to look at me with a surprised look. "Hey bro!" He exclaimed as he hugged in the most awkward manner, making me wish that I was hugging a cactus instead. "Yeah, yes, yes. I know. I'm here, okay?" I pushed him away as politely as I could, brushing off my outfit soon afterwards.
"Mind telling me what grand scheme you have for these people?" I asked with my hands folded.
"Well we were building these nice murals and runways," My brother replied in his trademark voice, high and annoying. Better to hear nails on chalkboard.
"Ah, I see," I stated, kicking off some dirt from my shoes, "Murals built with lines of dirt and runways without concrete, lights or half-decent coordination. Runways, made of dirt, for spacecraft that have no need for such things. Biplanes and jets maybe, for one time perhaps, but not saucer ships that can take off and land vertically. Oh, I nearly forgot. Some of those runways are slopped because they're on the sides of mountains! Let's not forget that I can't tell which runway I'm even supposed to land on in spite of all of that stuff before, because there's thousands of them crisscrossing each other! Finally, I thought murals are things that goes on walls, correct?" I reminded him. At this point, there's a part of me that suspects that the purpose of this specific assignment is to sweep any incompetents, either concealed or obvious, under the rug. Whereas my purpose is quite probably to ensure that one of them in particular is entertained for a time, like throwing the dog a bone.
"Ah, well the runways are, um...really more of a secondary job." It sounded like he was struggling for an explanation there.
"Seemed like it was your first job, considering how many of them there were! Well then, what's the first job then? Building a stable for horses?" I retorted, kicking up a bit of the dirt beneath my shoes.
He paused for a long moment, before saying, "Uh, no I wasn't."

"Ah," I replied, "That's actually quite sensible for you, since there's none of those on this continent! Just llamas. Llamas!"
"What? Well there were horses in that place with the big pyramids I've built a while back, though they have these strange bumps on their backs, and chariots too!" He exclaimed as if he didn't have a shred of doubt. "Pyramids you say? You've built them?" I asked, pushing the camel to horse confusion aside.

"Yes, especially the big ones!" He replied. I inhaled deeply as I quickly realized the heavy implications here.

"So, you mean to tell me that you've also built those huge pyramids in Egypt," I stated slowly for him to follow carefully.

"Yes!"

"Whose sole purpose is to store the corpse of some over-hyped king. A. Single. Corpse."

"Yes! Uh, well..."

"Which makes it in essence an over sized tombstone. I don't know about you but when someone decides to help me out by expanding my grave plot or put a giant coffin at my doorstep, it doesn't leave a good impression of that someone. Don't you think?" I wanted to point out other things that were wrong with that, those Step Pyramids I saw earlier that were conveniently hidden from view or were overshadowed by those giant eyesores, or better alternatives such as aqueducts, sewers and bathrooms. Speaking of which, "You did have the decency to have a portable toilet here, right?" I asked him, breaking his train of thought in coming up with excuses. "Ah, well we have this hole in the ground. It's nicely covered, actually."

I groaned, "Right, where?" My brother pointed to an inconspicuous spot that was walled in with straw, branches and leaves, which is quite odd as I couldn't find any plants or trees around here. Along the way there, I noticed one of the locals carrying a pile of rocks on his back in a makeshift shack. Note to self, talk to my brother about getting these people a hover dolly, or a wheel-barrel.

"Excuse me captain," my pilot called out to me, "Who's Marcel Marceau?"

Damn, this is going to be a long, painful & awkward first day.

Description
body div#devskin0 hr { }

"Sir, we are approaching the runway." My pilot announced as I looked out the window in disbelief. Here I was, assigned to be an assistant to my brother who's the head architect of this project. In my opinion, he's far less qualified than someone who cheated their way through elementary just to get a passing grade. Our mission is to advance and enlighten the natives of this planet and I'm certain that the lack of a performance measurement is one of the primary reasons why this "grand" mission failed miserably, even after thousands of years.
"Runway? But we're flying in a space-hovercraft, not a biplane! Runways were passé thousands of years ago. What kind of idiot builds runways nowadays? Especially ones made of nothing but dirt!" I stated with irritation, while drinking my coffee. Probably not a good combination given my poor blood pressure.
"Your brother, sir?" He pointed out in a meek voice.
I slapped my face with my hand and let out a large sigh. "Yes, well he was never the sharpest in our class to begin with."
My pilot let out a scoff, "Maybe the boss is fond of his minimalism?"
I let out a groan. I knew he was being sarcastic, so I added, "And his trademark dance moves too I suppose! Seriously, one time he built a bath house out of mud bricks and boulders, which isn't exactly appropriate for a hundred thousand credit project. Even more so since it was missing indoor plumbing!" I drummed my fingers on the seat, before I pulled up the communicator to get in touch with him down there. No bars, no luck. Did he forget to install a communications tower, again? "Oh there better be a bathroom down there!" I stated, regretting having that third cup of coffee. I looked out the window and saw nothing but dusty, brown mountains and flat planes of dirt, all of which have long crisscrossing lines and patterns on them. "And it better not be a portable toilet!"
When the spaceship landed on the ground, blowing away a few lines resembling some bug or something, there was nothing around the so-called runway. No lights. No concrete. No buildings of any kind. Just a lot of dirt runways of various sizes and directions, at least half of them useless and too small in width, and some random design patterns of the planet's local animals on the ground that is only visible from the mountains or in the sky. As the door of the saucer started to open, the sun's rays struck my eyes and lit the interior of the spaceship. Just then, a loud creaking noise echoed from the gears, and the ramp was jammed. As I covered the light with my hands, the pilot was busy fixing the rusty control panel. It also didn't help that the saucer mechanics decided to cut back on their expenditures by cutting back on ramp lubricants, something that I found out after actually reading the briefing some time later that day. The metal ramp plumped down onto the ground, sending any remaining bit of awe and dignity in a large cloud of dust.
As the pilot removed his hat, placed it on his chest and held his head high, I pointed out to him, while waving the dust away with my hands, "I'm sorry, but do you see a band and red carpet before us?" I walked down the ramp in a rush, followed by my pilot, and headed towards a group of locals shuffling heaps of dirt back and forth. I would recognize my brother anywhere. There he was, acting like some sort of choreographer who's playing charades with blue-collar workers, all of whom couldn't give a damn. At least it wasn't as embarrassing as when he, under the influence of alcohol, decided to dress himself as some bloated, green bipedal octopus creature with wings while shouting out his favorite lyrics to a pop song in front of a tribe of humans, of which he could only remember the first five or six words.
I marched towards my brother, who was giving out hand signals and gesture commands to the confused natives instead of communicating in their local language, and stood inches away from him. I gave him time to finish whatever he was doing, five seconds should have done the trick, before I cleared my throat. Nothing happened. I tried again, louder this time, and he was still unaware in spite of the fact that even some of the scantly clad locals are starting to take notice. By the third time, the locals stopped working and stared at the both of us. Unsurprisingly, he continued to make those frantic gestures with his arms. After a while, I blurted out, "This is a construction yard, not a mime school Marcel Marceau!" He turned to look at me with a surprised look. "Hey bro!" He exclaimed as he hugged in the most awkward manner, making me wish that I was hugging a cactus instead. "Yeah, yes, yes. I know. I'm here, okay?" I pushed him away as politely as I could, brushing off my outfit soon afterwards.
"Mind telling me what grand scheme you have for these people?" I asked with my hands folded.
"Well we were building these nice murals and runways," My brother replied in his trademark voice, high and annoying. Better to hear nails on chalkboard.
"Ah, I see," I stated, kicking off some dirt from my shoes, "Murals built with lines of dirt and runways without concrete, lights or half-decent coordination. Runways, made of dirt, for spacecraft that have no need for such things. Biplanes and jets maybe, for one time perhaps, but not saucer ships that can take off and land vertically. Oh, I nearly forgot. Some of those runways are slopped because they're on the sides of mountains! Let's not forget that I can't tell which runway I'm even supposed to land on in spite of all of that stuff before, because there's thousands of them crisscrossing each other! Finally, I thought murals are things that goes on walls, correct?" I reminded him. At this point, there's a part of me that suspects that the purpose of this specific assignment is to sweep any incompetents, either concealed or obvious, under the rug. Whereas my purpose is quite probably to ensure that one of them in particular is entertained for a time, like throwing the dog a bone.
"Ah, well the runways are, um...really more of a secondary job." It sounded like he was struggling for an explanation there.
"Seemed like it was your first job, considering how many of them there were! Well then, what's the first job then? Building a stable for horses?" I retorted, kicking up a bit of the dirt beneath my shoes.
He paused for a long moment, before saying, "Uh, no I wasn't."

"Ah," I replied, "That's actually quite sensible for you, since there's none of those on this continent! Just llamas. Llamas!"
"What? Well there were horses in that place with the big pyramids I've built a while back, though they have these strange bumps on their backs, and chariots too!" He exclaimed as if he didn't have a shred of doubt. "Pyramids you say? You've built them?" I asked, pushing the camel to horse confusion aside.

"Yes, especially the big ones!" He replied. I inhaled deeply as I quickly realized the heavy implications here.

"So, you mean to tell me that you've also built those huge pyramids in Egypt," I stated slowly for him to follow carefully.

"Yes!"

"Whose sole purpose is to store the corpse of some over-hyped king. A. Single. Corpse."

"Yes! Uh, well..."

"Which makes it in essence an over sized tombstone. I don't know about you but when someone decides to help me out by expanding my grave plot or put a giant coffin at my doorstep, it doesn't leave a good impression of that someone. Don't you think?" I wanted to point out other things that were wrong with that, those Step Pyramids I saw earlier that were conveniently hidden from view or were overshadowed by those giant eyesores, or better alternatives such as aqueducts, sewers and bathrooms. Speaking of which, "You did have the decency to have a portable toilet here, right?" I asked him, breaking his train of thought in coming up with excuses. "Ah, well we have this hole in the ground. It's nicely covered, actually."

I groaned, "Right, where?" My brother pointed to an inconspicuous spot that was walled in with straw, branches and leaves, which is quite odd as I couldn't find any plants or trees around here. Along the way there, I noticed one of the locals carrying a pile of rocks on his back in a makeshift shack. Note to self, talk to my brother about getting these people a hover dolly, or a wheel-barrel.

"Excuse me captain," my pilot called out to me, "Who's Marcel Marceau?"

Damn, this is going to be a long, painful & awkward first day.